Ufone Donates for Scholarship Programme of Memorial Trust

Amir Pasha, Head of PR and CSR, Ufone, handing over the cheque to Munzar Ata, Member Board of Trustees Air Cdre Rizwanullah Shaheed Memorial Trust

Ufone has said that it strongly believes the education being the most important right of every child and it is education that will bring about a positive change in our society.

Inline with its vision, Ufone has announced a donation of Rs.500, 000 for the Rizwan Scholars program of Air Cdre Rizwanullah Khan Shaheed Memorial Trust to help the students accomplish academic goals and to support promoting education in the country at large.

Air Cdre Rizwanullah Khan Shaheed Memorial Trust was launched in April 2003 with the aim of providing scholarships to smart, underprivileged students.

A scholarship program under the name of Rizwan Scholars was initiated that has financially assisted many talented students to continue their studies.

Ufone has previously been funding other activities of the organization but this time it has stepped forward to help financially constraint children to pursue their education and career by providing them scholarships.

Telenor Reports Single Digit Growth in Revenues, Lower ARPU During Q3 2013

Telenor Pakistan has posted PKR 69.725 billion in revenues for first nine months of on-going fiscal year, up from PKR 66.645 billion during same duration last year.

Currency depreciation, however, resulted into 4 percent Y-o-Y fall in revenues in Norwegian Kroner that stood at NOK 4065 million — for three quarters combined — as compared to NOK 4,232 million during same period last year.

The Telenor Group reported its third quarter financial results during the weekend where it said that Telenor Pakistan, during the reported quarter, showed an operating profit of NOK 282 million, versus an operating loss of NOK 95 million in Q3 2012.

Financial services contributed 2.5 percentage to the total revenue growth.

The EBITDA margin improved by 2 percentage points following higher revenues, savings from energy initiatives and negative one-time effects last year. The impact of introduction of ICH contributed negatively with 3 percentage points.

EBITDA in local currency increased by 12%.

Capital expenditure decreased as the network modernisation was finalised during the quarter, also resulting in reduced accelerated depreciation and improved operating profit

Company said that its ARPU in local currency decreased by 10%, mainly because of fierce on-net competition putting pressure on national interconnect revenues.

ARPU for postpaid users was reported at PKR 686, compared to PKR 190 ARPU for prepaid users.

ARPUs were also impacted by the fact that revenues from incoming international traffic through International Clearing House (ICH) are now accounted under non-mobile revenues and are not added into ARPU levels.

Telenor said that its subscribers increased by 160,000 during the quarter including a downward adjustment of 542,000 subscriptions following data cleaning exercise.

Telenor’s Average traffic minutes per user per month stood at 225.

PTCL Upgrades 2MB DSL Speeds to 4MB for Limited Time

PTCL has announced that it is upgrading its 2 MB broadband DSL costumers to 4MB for free.

The promotion will allow 2 MB users to enjoy double speeds of 4MB speeds for same rates, i.e. at Rs. 1,549 per month till December 31st, 2013, after which customers will have to pay the regular 4MB charges which are Rs. 1,999 per month.

PTCL said that it is automatically upgrading all customers, however, those who would not want to keep 4MB speeds can opt out of promotion by calling 1236.

This is not the first time that PTCL has upgraded its existing customers. However, the practice of automatically upgrading the speeds has seen criticism in the past. Customers are usually of the opinion that company should not upgrade speeds if the promotion is for limited time.

Warid Achieves Its Highest Ever Sales in October 2013

Seen in the picture Warid commercial team during cake cutting ceremony held at Warid Head Office (Standing from left Ms. Asma Khan, Director International Business, Mr. Adnan Anjum Director Pricing and Segments, Ms. Sadaf Zarrar Director Marcom, Mr. Nauman Fakhar VP CS, Mr. Suhail Jan VP Sales and Distribution, Warid Telecom

Despite a possible acquisition, Warid Telecom is claiming to have performed exceptionally well since January 2013. In fact, as per Warid, company achieved the highest ever sales for postpaid segment in the month of October 2013.

It is interesting to note that Warid is performing in a situation when company’s future is uncertain and critical, especially for the employees.

As per officials, Warid sold over 30,000 postpaid connections during September and October 2013.

Not to forget, Warid owns the second highest Postpaid base in the country, following Mobilink.

It appears that telcos are putting postpaid segment on a special focus. For instance, Ufone has reportedly sold 66,000 postpaid connections during last three months only. Ufone said that it sold 22K connections each month during July, August and September 2013.

Warid, however, enjoys the advantage of being acknowledged as the finest network. Despite limited coverage, company is widely considered to be the best in terms of quality of network.

Warid said that It offers product portfolio of over 80 value added services on IVR, SMS, MMS and GPRS platforms; some of which were first time introduced in Pakistan.

The company also worked to improve its distribution channels and enhance customer services network in the country, allowing it to offer wide accessibility and exceptional customer services across Pakistan.

BlackBerry Gets a new CEO and $1 Billion Instead of Getting Privatized

Not long ago, we told you about BlackBerry’s plans to go private in a $4.7 billion deal with Fairfax Financial. As it turns out, that process has fallen apart as the buyer couldn’t convince the banks that the deal was logical enough. Still, a lot has changed inside the company.

The CEO who turned BB10 into a reality and scraped BB7 OS, Thorsten Heins is gone. His void is filled by John S. Chen who will act as the company’s interim chief, while also serving as its chairman board of directors.

The company has also finalized a $1 billion deal with Fairfax Financial and a group of investors, as it seeks a way out of is recent troubles. Of course, in return of this generosity, the investors will decide what is best for the company and what needs to be scraped in order to move forward.

The first step as a part of that process is already taken, in the form of a newly-appointed CEO. Mr. John S. Chen, the new CEO, has a history and reputation of rescuing failing corporations so that’s not too bad at all.

More will follow in the future. However, quite contrary to what many people might be thinking right now, the handset division of the company won’t get axed at all.

“I know we have enough ingredients to build a long-term sustainable business,” the newly-appointed CEO said in an interview to Reuters, his first interview since the announcement. “I have done this before and seen the same movie before.”